Alone
by JTR01
Summary: As the universe ends, Arnold Rimmer has his final thoughts.


How many years has it been since he last heard the sound of a living creature. Maybe twelve million years. Since he last had a conversation with any form of intelligent sentient life. Triple that amount. Since he last saw anyone he truly cared about. He didn't have a smegging clue.

Arnold Rimmer had never dreamed, never even conceived the idea, that he would end up the last sentient being in the universe. There wasn't anything else in the universe, and if there were they had hidden themselves from every known from of technology ever made. There were no more GElfs, stimulants, mechanoids or anything. There was nothing, except him. And very soon, he won't be here.

Because very soon, the universe is going to end.

When you are first told that planet actually move when you're a kid, you can't really believe it at first. It just feels to impossible to be true, with that everything is standing still. That's what he had felt when he had that the universe would end up dying one day. Because who could even comprehend the end of everything.

He has seen stars go and planets simply vanish as the universe itself reached its end. Countless stars disappear forever while the planet's, all with their own history and little differences, become dust before the dust became nothing. He was pretty sure that all that was left, besides himself, was the ship he was on now. Red Dwarf.

How did he end up here, he would often wonder to himself. What stupid decision led him to this point. He didn't know anymore. He didn't know how many memories and experiences he had lost or deleted just to make room for new ones. He didn't know how many memories have been tampered with to the point he wasn't sure what memories he had were real. He didn't know why he couldn't destroy himself, despite how hard he tried, and he didn't know why he didn't stop himself from being indestructible in the first place.

The only thing he was certain of however, was that once he had friends. People that he cared about and wasn't ashamed to depend on, even if he never showed his appreciation or was even aware of how much he cared about them. Once upon a time, the people he called his family was a slob whose existence drove him near the brink of insanity, a sanitation droid who had only broken some of his programming, and a being who had evolved from the household cat. Dave Lister, Kryten and the Cat.

They were the only things he was certain of having actually existing. There might have been a living computer who once controlled the ship, but he wasn't sure. Didn't help that he was uncertain of the computer's gender, if it had even existed. He might have had a son, but again he wasn't sure. He wasn't even sure how he died for crying out loud, because of all the deleting and tampering. There is evidence that suggests he died from a radiation leak, but others that say he died on Red Dwarf when it was being destroyed by a virus. He couldn't remember what his family was like, and he couldn't remember if he had any other friends before his death.

All he was certain of was that Lister, Kryten and the Cat had been real. But he couldn't remember what happened to them. He actually couldn't remember a lot about them, except what they looked like and how they acted. Sometimes Rimmer thinks that he has a computer virus, since he thinks that the memories he has change sometimes. But he keeps remember things differently. For instance, he remembers a time when Lister kept writing himself a father's day card, but recalls having buried Lister along with the Cat only for an alternate version to show up from another reality with his version of the Cat. He sometimes remembers having been a close friend to Lister when he had got married to some woman, whose name he felt he should know but couldn't, but he sometimes thinks that Lister was never married. He can't remember when and how he met Kryten, as sometimes he's there in one memory and sometimes he isn't. He wasn't sure if the Cat ever met another of his own kind of not. And he wasn't sure what adventures he had with all of them were actually real or fake. He wasn't sure of anything, except they had been real. And for Rimmer, that was enough.

The ship had been drifting through space for the last who knows how many years, ever since it ran out of fuel. Rimmer had thought he would run out of fuel one day, but he thinks he uses self generating energy batteries, so he is always on. So all he can do is just walk about on an empty ship, all alone. But not for long. Because he knew that in a few seconds, it will happen.

As he looked out the window, at the vast emptiness of space that held no more life, Rimmer hoped he would see them again. See his friends, the only people he was ever happy with. He knew he was a hologram, a computer simulation of the human him, whoever that had been. But he hoped that if there was an afterlife and a kind of higher power, it will recognize that he was more than a simple copy. That it would let him see them again.

Something happened. Something inconceivable. Something unimaginable. As everything went white, Rimmer closed his eyes with the hope that if he opened them, he wouldn't be alone anymore.

 **Tell me what you think and if there are spelling mistakes. Now, I know that there are mentions to things not from the show and conflicting memories, but this is on purpose. The reason I had Rimmer have faulty memories is because that way the Rimmer shown can be whatever Rimmer you want. One of the future Rimmers, one of the TV Rimmers, even one of the book Rimmers.**


End file.
